GROWING MUSHROOMS IN GREENHOUSES. Any one who has a greenhouse can grow mushrooms in it. And it does not matter what kind of greenhouse it is, whether a fruit house, a flower house, or a vegetable house, it is available for mushrooms. One of the advantages of raising mushrooms in a greenhouse is that they grow to perfection in parts of the greenhouse that are nearly worthless for other purposes; for instance, under the stages, where nothing else grows well, although rhubarb and asparagus might be forced there, and a little chicory and dandelion blanched. Cool greenhouses, in all cases, are better for mushrooms than hothouses. Cool houses are seldom kept at a lower temperature than 45° or 50° in winter, while hothouses run from 60° to 70° at night, with a rise of ten to twenty degrees by day, and this is too hot for mushrooms. It is a very easy matter, by means of covering On Greenhouse Benches.—It sometimes happens that the beds are formed on the greenhouse benches, and the mushrooms occupy the same place that might be assigned to roses or any other planted-out crop. The beds on the benches are made one board deep, that is, eight to ten inches of short, fresh manure, and otherwise as in the case of beds anywhere else. After the beds are spawned and cased with soil, by covering them over with a layer of straw litter or hay, sudden drying out of the surface is prevented, and in order to further prevent this drying it is a good plan to sprinkle some water over the mulching every day or two, but not enough to soak through into the bed. About the time the young mushrooms commence to show themselves, remove the mulching and replace it with a covering of shutters raised another board's height above the bed, or with strong calico or plant-protecting cloth hung curtain-fashion over the beds. The accompanying illustration, Fig. 12, for which I am indebted to Henry A. Dreer, of Philadelphia, gives an excellent idea of how mushrooms may be grown and cared for on greenhouse benches. This illustration, Mr. Dreer writes: "is made from a photograph of a crop grown on the greenhouse benches at the Model Farm, by Mr. McCaffrey, gardener to J. E. Kingsley, Esq., of the Continental Hotel.... No covering of litter is used, but the requisite shading on sunny days is secured by the use of cotton cloth stretched over the top of the bed, as shown in the engraving." In Frames in the Greenhouses.—Mr. J. G. Gardner has a range of greenhouses some 900 feet long—the longest unbroken string of glasshouses that I know of—for the forcing of fruit and vegetables in winter; grapes, peaches, nectarines, figs, tomatoes, cucumbers, snap beans, peas, lettuce. This range is divided into several compartments, to accommodate the different varieties of crops, also so that some can be run as succession houses. In order to make the most of everything, market-gardener-like, he doubles up his crops wherever possible, and for this end he finds no crop more amenable and profitable than mushrooms. It matters nothing to him whether the house is cold or warm, he can grow mushrooms in it anyway, and in order to be master of the situation he makes his mushroom beds in hotbed frames inside the greenhouses. By attending to ventilating or keeping close, or covering up or leaving bare, he can properly regulate the temperature The greenhouses in which the mushrooms are grown are orchard houses, that is, glasshouses in which peach and nectarine trees are grown and forced. As these trees fruit and finish their growth early, it is necessary that they be kept as cool and inactive as possible in the fall and early winter, and started again into growth in late winter. In the fall, therefore, the fermenting material being confined in frames retains warmth enough for the proper development of the mushrooms, and as the winter advances and the heat in the frames begins to wane it becomes necessary to begin heating the greenhouses in order to start the trees into bloom and growth, and thus are provided very favorable conditions for the continued production of the mushroom crop. The frames used are common hotbed box frames seven In preparing the beds in the frames they were made up a foot deep, very firm, and with New York stable manure brought direct from the cars. There was no preliminary preparation of the manure. A layer of loam one and one-half inches deep was then spread over the surface and forked into the bed of manure one and one-half inches deep, so as to form an earthy mat three inches deep. This was then packed solid with the feet, and a two-inch layer of loose manure added all over. In about ten days the temperature three inches below the surface was about 95°, and the beds were then spawned. In spawning, drills were drawn across the beds about a foot apart and just deep enough to touch but not penetrate the earthy mat before referred to. The broken spawn was then sown in the drills and covered with a layer of loam one and one-half to two inches deep, which was tamped slightly. The sashes were then put on and tilted up a little to let the moisture escape. By the time the mushrooms appeared there was very little need of ventilating, as the condensation of moisture on the And further, in submitting the above notes to him for verification, he adds: "There is one vital point we should impress upon all who grow mushrooms in frames or under greenhouse benches, namely, that sudden changes of temperature must be avoided. While light, in my opinion, is good for mushrooms, it causes a rise of temperature, and this we must guard against. In order to maintain a uniform temperature all glass exposed to light or heat in any other way should be covered with some non-conducting material. Rye straw is the best thing for this purpose that I know of. Indeed, neglect of this simple matter, in cases where sunlight and heat from hot-water pipes come in contact with the young mushrooms or mycelium on the surface of the beds, is the cause of many failures in growing in frames and greenhouses." Under Greenhouse Benches.—Open empty spaces under the stages anywhere are good places for mushroom beds. However, carefully observe a few points, to wit: A dry floor under the beds is imperative, for a wet floor soaks and chills the beds, and renders them unhealthy for the spawn; but the common earth floor is good enough, provided water does not stand upon it at any time; if Among Other Plants on Greenhouse Benches.—It sometimes happens that mushrooms spring up spontaneously among the roses, carnations, violets, mignonette, and other crops that are grown "planted out" on the benches, and this is particularly the case where fresh soil had just been used, in whole or part, for filling the bench beds. These mushrooms come from natural spawn contained in the loam or manure before they were brought indoors, and which is apt to be true virgin spawn. The mushrooms are generally of the common kind, grown from brick spawn, but occasionally a much larger and heavier sort is produced, and this is the "horse" mushroom. It is perfectly good to eat, only of coarser quality than the other. Growing Mushrooms in Rose Houses.—George Savage, the head gardener at Mr. Kimball's greenhouses, Rochester, N. Y., grows mushrooms very successfully under the benches of the rose houses. When he makes up his earliest mushroom beds in the fall the rose house is kept cool, and this is an advantage to the mushroom beds, which get all the warmth they need from the fermenting manure; but as November advances, and the heat in the beds begins to wane the rose houses are "started," and this artificial warmth comes in good season to benefit the growing mushrooms. The roses, in this case, are planted out on benches, hence there is scarcely any dripping of water from above upon the mushroom beds below. Mr. George Grant, of Mamaroneck, N. Y., who grows mushrooms in the greenhouse, I called to see last January, and was very much pleased with his simple and successful method. The beds were then in fine bearing, very full, and the crop was of the best quality. The beds were made upon the earthen floor of his tomato-forcing house and under the back bench. The bed was Mr. Abram Van Siclen, of Jamaica, Long Island, is one of the largest mushroom growers for market in the country, as well as one of the most extensive growers of market-garden truck under glass around New York. He devotes an immense area under his lettuce-house benches to the cultivation of mushrooms. The beds are made upon the floor in the usual way, only for convenience' sake, to admit of plenty of room in making up the beds and gathering the crop, besides avoiding the necessity for building higher structures than the ordinary lettuce greenhouses, the mushroom beds are sunken about eighteen to twenty-four inches under the level of the pathways. As the lettuces are planted out upon the benches there is very little drip from them, hence the sunken beds are well enough. And the temperature of a lettuce house is about right for a long-lasting mushroom bed. Light is excluded by a simple covering of salt hay laid over the beds, and sometimes by light wooden shutters set up against the aperture between the lettuce benches and the floor, in this way boxing in the mushrooms in total darkness. Mr. William Wilson, of Astoria, has an immense greenhouse establishment near New York. In his greenhouses, under both the side and middle benches, he grows mushrooms, and when I saw them in January there were about 300 square yards of beds. The beds were flat, about nine inches thick, built upon the Drip from the Benches.—This must be prevented from the beds above, else it will soak or chill, and in a large measure kill the spawn. I have seen many examples of this evil. The beds would be full of drip holes all over their surface, and although a good many mushrooms here and there about the bed might perfect themselves, multitudes only reach the pin-head condition—or possibly the size of peas—and then fogg off in patches. It is not one or two little mushrooms in a clump that fogg off, but where one foggs off all of the little ones in In greenhouses where the benches are occupied with roses, carnations, bouvardias, violets, or lettuces, "planted out," as commercial florists and gardeners generally grow them, there is very little drip, because while the plants on these benches are freely watered, the soil is never soaked enough for the water to drain from it in dripping streamlets, as is continually the case in greenhouses where potted plants are grown on the stages. Under these "planted out" benches, if care is exercised, mushrooms can be grown in open beds; in fact, it is about the best place and condition for them in a greenhouse. With stages occupied by plants in pots provision needs to be made to ward off the drip from the mushroom beds, by erecting over, and conveniently high above them, a light wooden framework, on which rest light wooden frames covered with oiled paper, oiled muslin, or plant-protecting cloth. In fact, three light wooden strips run over the bed, as shown in Fig. 12, or three strings of stout cord or wire run in the same manner will answer for small beds, and act as a support for the oiled muslin or plant-protecting cloth. Building paper is sometimes used for the same purpose. Mr. J. G. Gardner uses The beds under the greenhouse benches may be made up in the same way as are beds anywhere else; that is, flat upon the floor and between two boards set on edge, as seen in Fig. 16, or in ridges under the high or middle benches, as in Fig. 17, or in banked beds against the back wall, as shown in Fig. 18. Generally the flat bed is the most convenient to make and take care of. In open, airy greenhouses it is always well to inclose the mushroom beds in box casings and with sash or shutter Ammonia Arising.—Ammonia arising from the manure of the mushroom beds in the greenhouse may be injurious to the other inmates of the greenhouse. If the manure has been well prepared before it was introduced into the greenhouse, the ammonia arising from it will not, in the least degree, injure any other plants or flowers that may be in the house; but if the manure is fresh, hot, and rank, the opposite will be the case. Beds in greenhouses should always be made up of manure that has been well prepared beforehand out of doors or in a shed, and as it is brought into the greenhouse it should at once be built solidly into the beds. Then very little steam will arise from the beds; in fact, it will be imperceptible to sight or smell. |